Threshing Along The Stillwater River, Miami County, Ohio

In 1907 my Father bought a new double cylinder Gaar Scott and a
sawmill. At this time many barns or sheds were being built to cure
tobacco in. My Father was able to keep the Gaar Scott busy the year
round. Jim Robbin, Roy Zimmerman, and my uncle, Delmar Coppock,
were the men he employed. Years later whenever the old crew got
together, they could tell some big stories.

In 1913, late in the season, my Father sold the outfit to a Mr.
Bluholtz. When I was eleven or twelve years old we stopped at a
sawmill near Bradford, Ohio. Gaar Scott engine was in the belt; my
Father told me he bought this engine new.

In 1914, my Father and John Furlong bought a new outfit; 32
H.P., Mogul, kerosene tractor, Racine separator, and a Rosenthal
corn husker. After two seasons my Father sold his interest to Mr.
Furlong, who continued to thresh until after World War II.

The next several years my Father followed the occupation of
farming, but he never lost his interest in threshing. Like so many
others found out, once a thresher, always a thresher.

In 1923 we lived on a large farm, southeast of Pleasant Hill.
Fred Wrong was threshing in the neighborhood and Mr. Wrong remarked
to my Father that he would like to sell his outfit. A deal was
made.

The outfit he bought from Mr. Wrong was a Port Huron Engine, 19
H.P. bought in 1918, Aultman-Taylor separator, 32 inch, new in
1920, McCormick corn husker, Birdsell clover huller, steaming pan
to sterilize tobacco seed bed with; water wagon and a bunk
house.

My Father was a good mechanic keeping the machinery in good
repair and he was able to run this outfit for several seasons.

In 1927, my Father bought a new 20-40 Huber Tractor to thresh
with. Huber was a good tractor, easy to handle, easy to belt, and
needed very little maintenance. He also purchased a new Huber corn
husker.

Again in 1927, when I was ten years old, and Huber was new, it
was my first season to follow a threshing outfit; my last season
was 1940.

Usually we started the threshing run after the Fourth of July
and the run would last ten to twelve weeks, about sixty percent
field threshing and forty percent barn threshing. Many a morning we
left home before daylight, so we could move the outfit and be ready
to thresh when harvest arrived.

At this time I was too young to drive. My Father had a special
hitch made so we could pull the Model T truck behind the separator
and I would curl up on the front seat and go to sleep.

The Aultman-Taylor was a good separator, but after ten big
seasons, it began to show her age. In 1928, my Father traded the
Aultman-Taylor for a new 30 inch Baker separator. I was very happy
with the new Baker, it was always my job in the morning with the
Aultman-Taylor separator to oil the crankshaft bearing on the
rotary straw rack. The Baker had a different type of straw
rack.

The Baker was a good separator, all metal construction, roller
bearing, and very little work needed to keep it in operation. The
Aultman-Taylor was better all around and easier to pull in the
belt.

After a season run with the Baker, the cylinder spikes began to
wear, the Baker separator began to back lash or bring straw around
the cylinder again, making a very hard pulling separator. Before
the next season, my Father respiked the cylinder and he used 3/8
inch longer spikes and this solved the problem of the back
lash.

Threshing, corn husking, clover hulling, and sterilizing tobacco
beds were a year round job. By 1930, my older brothers had
graduated from high school and found employment in other
occupations, and we moved north of Pleasant Hill on a small farm
which belonged to my parents.

We continued to have large field threshing runs through the
early thirties; each year the barn threshing would get less. The
part of Ohio we lived in, we had large barns, in place of stacking
wheat in open, the farmer would stack the wheat in the barn. This
made very good threshing and we always charged one cent a bushel
less for ‘barn threshing.’

I have read many issues of ‘The Iron Men’ but never
notice any article about sterilizing tobacco beds with a steam
engine. The tobacco seed beds were five feet wide and forty or
fifty feet long. The steaming pan was five feet wide, ten feet
long, made of heavy gauge shut metal, would steam or sterilize each
setting of the pan thirty minutes at 100 psi. We would get ninety
cents a pan. The seed beds were sterilized in April and early May.
This practice of sterilizing seed beds by steam came in after World
War I. This added another income for the thresher and kept many old
steam engines in operation for this task.

I would also like to make a few remarks about corn huskers. I
always enjoyed feeding the corn husker and it was very hard work.
The companies that built Corn Huskers were never successful in
building a corn husker suitable for all kind of weather conditions.
If they built a corn husker with severe roll for dry weather, then
on damp days the severe roll would shell large amounts of corn;
also the native corn and fodder came or grew in many different
sizes. After Hybrid seed corn came on the market, the corn fodder
was more uniform and the yield of corn per acre doubled. By this
time the corn picker had been developing and it was very successful
and this helped to bring to end big ‘Corn Husking Ring or Run.
‘In 1934 my Father purchased a portable sawmill for forty
dollars. The saw was a 56 inch and in good condition. He rebuilt
the mill and in the spring of 1935 and 1936 we sawed around 100,000
board feet. We received seven dollars per thousand.

After the federal government began wheat allotment in the early
thirties, the depression was also in full bloom and many old
retired engines and separators were returned to service to make a
few dollars. About this time the Farm Machinery Manufacturing
Company developed a successful combine to be operated with the two
plow tractor and each succeeding year the threshing run would get
smaller.

In 1936 it was our last big year. The wheat straw was short, but
made above average yield to the acre. We had a very good run with
the corn husker and we hulled several bushels of clover seed.

In September of 1938 my Father passed away and Mother sold the
outfit to Joe Well.

By 1940, the combine was harvesting over one half of the wheat
crop. 1940 was my last season. The next year I entered the military
service.

Driving through the Southwest I often pass by an old separator
or engine parked in a pasture half hidden by weeds and it always
brings back memories of those bygone days. Harvest season was the
time for neighborhood gatherings, the wonderful meals the
farmer’s wife would prepare for the harvest hands. For me, up
early in the morning, checking and greasing the separator,
refueling the tractor, threshing until dark.

I can still hear the old Baker separator groan toward evening,
when the wheat straw began to get tough and the exhaust flame from
the old Huber tractor would plume two to three feet into the
atmosphere. About this time of the day as if it were only
yesterday, I can still see my Father give me the signal to increase
the governor setting in the Huber.